clashing chords
by TheChasm
Summary: Misery hangs over the room like a suffocating blanket, and the music just can't play. / The Weasleys, December 31 1998. Healing is a long and difficult road, and their easy harmony is lost. One-shot.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.**

**A/N: This is simply to let you know that I. Am. In. Love. With. This. Story. I hope you will be, too!**

**Written for several challenges/competitions on HPFC:**

**The Hunger Games Competition, round 2 (the interviews)**

**The Hogwarts Winter Games, Alpine Skiing Giant Slalom - write a story that takes place at the Burrow**

**The Star Challenge, Adara - write about any/all Weasleys**

**The word count without the author's note is 1692.**

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**clashing chords**

Do you want to hear the song of a broken family? Well, you've certainly come to the right place.

We're sitting in the living room just at present. This is no mean feat, because there are nine – sorry, eight – Weasleys, plus Fleur and Harry and Hermione and our _special guests _for the holiday, Andromeda Tonks and her grandson Teddy. Andromeda, at least, is not really welcome here, even though we all just _adore_ the baby. But nobody tells her that.

So let's start with the two of them. They're sitting close to the fire (specially charmed by yours truly to flicker out the precise moment the clock strikes midnight on the first day of 1999) in a single chair, even though Teddy's really much too restless at the moment to be sitting still. Andromeda, poor dear that she is, can't bear to let go of her last connection to her daughter on this most bittersweet of days.

Personally, I can't see anything that puts the 'sweet' in 'bittersweet', but whatever.

Andromeda and Mum get on brilliantly – the shared tragedy of losing a child, you see. I think it's stupid, but apparently some people like to cry on the shoulders of almost complete strangers. I keep my pillow for that.

Next to Andromeda, seated on a cushion because there aren't enough chairs, is Harry. He's talking to Teddy in a saccharine baby-voice that nobody would think the Saviour of the Wizarding World capable of, but I suppose the battle's brought out something different in all of us. The kid's got the right idea – he's completely ignoring his godfather and playing with the stuffed toy dragon Ron got him for Christmas.

But Harry. He hasn't really visibly changed since May, although there's something about the hunch of his shoulders and the tension in his muscles that suggests victory isn't all as sweet as it sounds. I often catch him staring into space, the corners of his mouth turned down and his fists tightly clenched. I would comfort him, and most days I do, but sometimes I just don't have the energy anymore.

Misery hangs over the room like a suffocating blanket, and the music just can't play.

Bill and Fleur are playing couple-in-love again, squashed into a single armchair and giving each other soppy looks. Her silvery hair is splayed over his shoulder, and he's wrapped an arm protectively around her. What do they have to look forward to in the new year? A family, perhaps. They haven't actually said anything, but it's obvious that they're starting to think about children. I suppose Fleur will give birth to a beautiful baby girl with golden hair and sapphire eyes, and Bill will cradle her in his arms and name her something ridiculous like Aurore, and they will be too immersed in their own joy to consider the rest of the family's sorrow.

We should have moved on by now, you say? How many brothers have _you_ buried?

On the subject of couples, Ron and Hermione have taken one of the couches. Hermione looks in danger of dozing off, while Ron stares into the fire, lost in thought. (As much as he can be, anyway.) They spend their time on long walks in the hills, clutching hands and communicating without words. Hermione is Ron's comfort and healing, and as much as I try I can't hate him for that. He has not deserted us, at least. Not like Bill.

Mum and Dad… Mum and Dad are curled up together on the other couch. Mum's busy knitting a scarf for little Teddy, using enchanted wool that changes colour to match his hair. They're both avidly listening to the storyteller, who is seated at their feet and looking up at them with very bright eyes – but I'm getting ahead of myself; I was telling you about Mum and Dad. They're a melancholy symphony, the two of them, tears still occasionally glittering in their eyes and their laughs a little too sad and a little too slow.

The other day, I walked into the kitchen to find Mum sobbing while making supper, horrible racking sobs that shook the whole room. (The potatoes were burned beyond salvaging, but at least they had been nicely salted by her tears.) I should have comforted her, I know, but it was one of those days when the gaping absence in the house was simply too much and I turned tail and fled. Some Gryffindor.

Dad spends the majority of his time in the shed, tinkering away furiously with his old Muggle contraptions as if trying to make up for not being able to fix the impossible, not being able to make the family whole again. He tries his best to fit in with holiday cheer, telling countless Christmas-themed jokes and working harder than anyone on the tree, but what he doesn't seem to realise is that there's no healing this wound. Grow _up,_ Dad.

Percy is sitting by the window, staring out into the night. There's a sad little quirk to his mouth and his knuckles are white where he grips the window-sill. He's spoken three, maybe four words the entire holiday, preferring to opt for gazes loaded with meaning and heavy sighs.

Just like everything else about him, his method of Dealing With It (for some reason, that always sounds as if it's capitalised) is… well, odd. He's become a tightly-wound shell, spending all of his time at the Ministry working at the complicated task of putting the world back together. When he does speak, his voice is clipped and strained, his eyes completely unfeeling. He's always been a changeling-sort of Weasley, and now he does not seem to understand the act of just letting your heart _bleed._

He drops by enough times a week to keep Mum from worrying, sends me punctual letters and ticks all the boxes that he should, but there's something essential missing and it disconcerts me. The chords clash.

So who are we left with now? What about Charlie, did you say? _Dearest_ big brother Charlie? He's a coward. He ran away to Romania barely a week after the funeral, not coming back throughout the long, hard summer that followed. Brave Charlie, they say, reckless Charlie who dances with dragons! How about weak Charlie, pathetic Charlie who can't stand the harsh, scraping tune of a newly broken family, who prefers the clean and simple harmonies of scales and fire? It took Mum a long time to even persuade him to come home for Christmas, you know. He had no qualms in abandoning us – oh, go on, try to sing his praises _now!_

He sits in an armchair beside Ron and Hermione, chatting animatedly with anyone and everyone, pretending he _belongs_ here. It's sickening.

So you disapprove, do you? You think I should be kind to him? He thought that too – didn't understand for a solid week why I strode from the room when he walked in, why I was no longer interested in tales of dragons or his latest escapade with a girl. I think Bill clued him in after that, because now he treats me with a cautious, shaky sort of respect, as if I'm made of glass. I can't believe he thinks that will be enough to win me over. He _betrayed_ us, more than Percy ever could.

Did you know that he has not yet looked George in the eye?

So that brings me to George. Take a deep breath – you might not be happy at what I have to tell you.

George is sitting at Mum and Dad's feet, purportedly because there aren't enough seats but in reality, I think, because he needs someone to protect him and try as I might I can't fully do that for him. He is telling the room in general a funny story about a customer who came into the shop last week, his voice bright and vivid.

George is the melody, high and fragile, rising above the discordant sounds of the rest of the family trying to bring itself together. His heart is cracked and broken, but he's set himself on fire and maybe it hurts, but it's enough to cover the scars and so nobody really cares. His eyes are shattered and lost but he plasters on a smile and carries on, for Mum, for Dad, for _me,_ because he cannot bear to see us grieving.

His laugh is beautiful as always, but this time it's not carefree and brilliant but painful, glorious, because he is burning and burning and _Merlin, _make it _stop,_ can't you hear him _screaming?_

Am I the only one?

They think he's healing – they watch as he invents new products all by himself and shakes off any sort of assistance, as he cracks jokes at Sunday lunches and glues the family back together and it's killing him, but he's a Weasley twin and he does not leave things half-done.

He's so busy saving them that he doesn't think to save himself, and everyone is so busy drowning that they cling to him like a lifeline and don't notice his too-thin hands or the way his voice is just a little too hoarse to be passed off as _one of those winter colds, you know?_

(He screams through the night, but Silencing Charms aren't difficult and nobody thinks to check on him during the darkest hours.)

I want to save him, I do, I promise. I don't know why I won't. Perhaps it is because nobody likes the girl who pours healing water on fireworks and shades them against the sun, or – who am I kidding? Perhaps it is because I'm selfish, and I'd like his boundless charm to pull _me_ to my feet, too. Perhaps I don't care enough.

Take a look at the room again, the cosy firelight illuminating a scene that is anything but; feel the heartbreak in the air and listen to the desperate song of a wounded family. Tell me if you think we'll be whole again.

I don't even know why I'm telling you all this. You can't hear me, can you, Fred?

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**Please review! *puppy eyes***

**~Butterfly**


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